Search Engine Optimization News Blog

A new force is now powering nearly have of Bing queries, according to Microsoft. The new MSN portal has been awaited with baited breath, and the beta release has people rushing to try out Bing’s new interface.

MSN Is Changing for the Better

• Everything You Love & More…

According to Bob Visse, GM for MSN at Microsoft,  over the course of the beta period, the company tweaked the Bing search box and its presentation at the top of the page to make it more prominent. The blue fading to white seemed to get good results:

Also prominent is the preview beta of Bing Local Search, the answer to Google Local. The results will take time to emerge, but MSN has around 600 million users globaly.

Bing Search

Search:

Local Edition

Visse says that Microsoft plans to launch a major online ad campaign for MSN (which is also indirectly a campaign for Bing) in the next few months. The Bing commercials so far have fallen slightly flat, so here’s hoping that the new round of marketing is marginally more entertaining.

Reportedly, MSN drives a hefty 50% of Bing’s traffic – but most of this can be attributed to diehard MSN fans. Can Microsoft really compete on a serious level with Google when they actually only have a serious core of diehards to keep the engines running? Or will their global presence save the day – MSN is much less hated abroad than the arrogant Google.

Bing periodically spikes since its roll out last year, trying to catch Yahoo. of course, with Yahoo ‘getting out of search’ – at least, for the short term, can MSN finally catch up? If so, you may want to guarantee your SERPs ranking in more than one engine.

Yahoo and Microsoft have finally received the go ahead on their deal for Microsoft to power search and ads for Yahoo.

According to Yahoo! Finance, the deal is finally greenlighted:

Microsoft and Yahoo! announced today that they have received clearance for their search agreement, without restrictions, from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission, and will now turn their attention to beginning the process of implementing the deal.

Implementation of the deal is expected to begin in the coming days and will involve transitioning Yahoo!’s algorithmic and paid search platforms to Microsoft, with Yahoo! becoming the exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally. Once the transition is completed, the companies’ unified search marketplace will deliver improved innovation for consumers, better volume and efficiency for advertisers and better monetization opportunities for web publishers through a platform that contains a larger pool of search queries.

Bartz spoke out in a press conference about Yahoo’s new direction and hopes for the future:

Yahoo! is a place where millions go every day to see what is happening with the people and things that matter to them most. We’re the largest online media company in the world. We’re number one in news, sports, and finance, and a leader in key entertainment properties…

But we face a formidable competitor in one aspect, and that aspect is search. It became obvious to us that working with another great technology company would help us share the investment expense to scale the market. This deal enables us to keep a healthy revenue stream and invest in areas critical to our future, while Microsoft invests in search technologies…

Search will continue to be an integral part of the Yahoo! user experience, and we will continue to integrate search throughout all our properties, and invest in making our user experience even better based on search functionality. But the back-end technologies will be powered by Bing.

The deal had been languishing in red tape land for some time, but finally the agreement is going into effect and Microsoft will officially be powering Yahoo search.

Yahoo also said:

Implementation of the deal is expected to begin in the coming days and will involve transitioning Yahoo!’s algorithmic and paid search platforms to Microsoft, with Yahoo! becoming the exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally. Once the transition is completed, the companies’ unified search marketplace will deliver improved innovation for consumers, better volume and efficiency for advertisers and better monetization opportunities for web publishers through a platform that contains a larger pool of search queries.

Steve Ballmer commented briefly:

This really is a win-win agreement for Microsoft and for Yahoo! Both companies benefit from scale and from positive economics. Consumers really will get better products, advertisers will get more value, better return on their investments, and I think it will help the industry as a whole to prosper. It’s a great example of what can be accomplished with shared vision, shared values, and we are super excited to see this relationship flourish and come to life over the next months and years ahead.

Yahoo will be directing more of their efforts toward the mobile and news media market, said Bartz.

The new Windows Seven phone is being unveiled, and what do we have here! A whole button, just to connect you to Bing, MSN’s latest search engine.

Snazzy, right?

The new phone is not only sleek and stylish, it makes using MSN’s Bing a natural – letting Microsoft compete with Google’s Nexus, which naturally defaults to Google. Take a look at all the features the new phone delivers via hubs:

• People Hub: The complete social profile, allowing a rich social experience by collecting all relevant content based on you, including  live feeds from social networks and your photos. This give you a central place from which to post updates to Facebook and Windows Live in one quick, easy step.
• Picture Hub: You can share pictures and video to a social network by using Windows Phone 7 Series to give you access to all photos by integrating with the Web and your PC. Imagine, your entire picture and video collection at your fingertips!
• Game Hub: The first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone! You get Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and access to a gamer’s avatar, Achievements and gamer profile. You can play with the 23 million active members around the world on Windows Phone 7 Series, blowing the world of gaming wide open!
• Music + Video Hub: You can combine Zune with content from your PC, most online music services and even a built-in FM radio. This is YOUR music/video connection, and you can easily share with friends through Zune Social on a PC – and the playback experience is second to none.
• Marketplace Hub: Search, find and load your new phone with certified applications and games in record time.
• Office Hub: Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace comes together on your phone so you can read, edit and share documents on the run. Add the additional power of Outlook Mobile, and you can keep up with business and pleasure anywhere.

The Windows 7 phone with Bing is bound to be a winner.

Bing has announced it will be cozying up to Facebook  in 2010; exclusively powering the web search results on the booming social network:

(from Bing Community Blog)

First, we have deepened our joint work together on web search to provide even more compelling experiences to Facebook users with Bing. As part of this expanded cooperation in search, our two companies will soon provide Facebook users with a more complete search experience by providing full access to great Bing features beyond a set of links, including richer answers combined with tools that help customers make faster, smarter decisions.

Second, we are extending our cooperation outside the US, bringing the Bing-Facebook search integration to the more than 400 million people using Facebook around the world.

Lastly, we made the mutual decision that Facebook would take over responsibility for selling display advertisements on its own site. We have been working together on advertising for a long time, creating the best experience for Facebook users and advertisers. Given the kinds of advertisements that make sense within a product as unique as Facebook, it just made more sense for them to take the lead on this part of their advertising strategy. MS will continue to provide search advertisements to Facebook.

In 2007, a press release went out saying that MSN was hooking up with then fairly new and budding Facebook:

Facebook and Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft will take a $240 million equity stake in Facebook’s next round of financing at a $15 billion valuation, and the companies will expand their existing advertising partnership. Under the expanded strategic alliance, Microsoft will be the exclusive third-party advertising platform partner for Facebook, and will begin to sell advertising for Facebook internationally in addition to the United States.

Nick O’Neill from All Facebook speculated in 2008 that actually buying Facebook could be a great move for Microsoft:

It’s pretty obvious that Facebook will be one of the largest search engines if the majority of people searches are going through their site. Back in September I wrote about the site being one of the fastest growing search engines, and that trend continues. While the web industry has yet to figure out how to monetize people search effectively, it’s only a matter of time.

Facebook is poised to be the largest people search engine in the world. Google and Microsoft both know that and that’s why Microsoft has already placed their down payment. Will Facebook sell the company eventually? Perhaps they’ll hold off and wait for the IPO. My guess is that the two most popular technology companies founded by Havard dropouts will be tightly connected throughout the future.

That’s not happening, but MSN definitely sees the value of being the exclusive engine running search on the monster social network.

According to Reuters, Bing is not only still alive and kicking, it will soon be bringing home the bacon for parent MSN.

According to one of its top executives, Microsoft Corp’s 10-month-old search engine Bingis expected to make money online eventually

MSN has reportedly lost more than $5 billion over the past four years but hopes change that with the search advertising partnership with Yahoo Inc.

Reuters story says:

“As soon as we close and implement the Yahoo deal, we have achieved a milestone: for advertisers, we are a credible No. 2,” Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online audience business, said in an interview on Tuesday.

“Really now, the goal is about share gain. If we grow share, we will grow our way into profitability, and we have confidence we can do that,” said Mehdi, who is charged with making Bing and the MSN portal a financial success.

According to ComScore, Microsoft has bumped up to 10.7 percent of the U.S. search marketplace from 8 percent in June (before Bing’s launch).

That means it is still trailing Google and Yahoo, but if U.S. regulators approve a deal that makes Bing the underlying search engine for Yahoo, Microsoft will  control almost 30 percent of the search market – enough to attract major advertiser attention.

“At 30 points we are now a credible option, so that number matters,” said Mehdi. “The nice thing is we can say (to advertisers) you can be close to 30 percent share in one easy buy. That 30 percent carries a lot of weight in the marketplace.”

This could be the break MSN has been waiting for, and Yahoo’s apparent surrender of the search market comes at a perfect time for the fledgling engine Bing.

Google’s annual revenue is more than $23 billion – and they don’t quite have a monopoly yet – plenty more where that came from!

The biggest part of moving into profit “is just getting the scale,” said Mehdi. “We’re built out to be a much larger player. We’ve spent the money and built out in such a way that we can be a player at scale. Every day that we grow a tenth of point of share, that moves us further up the curve.”

The Bing application has been a hit on Apple Inc’s mobile devices, and it is rumoured that Apple is considering making it the default search application on its iPhone. Inaddition, AOL is said to be on the market, and MSN could be a player in that bidding war, if it comes to pass.

The fat lady has yet to sing, by a long shot, but many feel that Bing has the best chance of unseating Google from it’s complacent stance as ruler of the internets.

“Ultimately we want to be a major player at scale, so we’re going to have to grow against Google at some point,” said Mehdi.

But “we’re still outmanned and outgunned by Google, they still have way more engineers than we do.”